As part of the exhibition we kept track of the total number of people on death row in the United States today. While executions have been on the decline in recent years, death rows are still maintained by 26 states, the United States Military, and the Federal Government.
The number on the sign in the gallery was adjusted weekly by a research group depending on the number of executions, exonerations, commutations, natural deaths, and new sentences that occur on the death rows of each state. The research team is composed of volunteers working closely with artist Mark Menjívar.
Research group members included Jillian Aguilar, Logan Zurita McKinnon, Lindsay Reckson, Mark Menjívar, Ilani Lark, Hunter Logan, Kasey Ingerson, Abigail Clark, and Amelia LaMotte.
Sponsored by the Distinguished Visitors Program, VCAM’s Malcolm Baldwin 1962 Fund, and Imagining Abolitionist Futures, an initiative of the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities.